Endowed with great curiosity, Pierre Lescure is a jack-of-all-trades journalist. Radio, television, cinema, and even football, he has done it all.
His career began in radio where he held several management positions. On television, he presents television news and creates numerous programs. In 1984, he founded Canal Plus with André Rousselet, its CEO, before succeeding him from 1994 to 2002. Passionate about cinema, he was elected president of the Cannes Film Festival in 2014.
Since 2014, he has been a columnist on the show It’s up to you broadcast every evening on France 5 at 7 p.m.
At the microphone of Bixente Lizarazu, Pierre Lescure talks about his career and explains, in particular, the reasons why he wanted Canal Plus invested in PSG in the early 1990s.
Why Canal Plus bought PSG in 1991
At the time when Pierre Lescure was thinking of buying PSG with Canal Plus, the club has poor results and is not far from filing for bankruptcy. Above all, there is almost no more competition in the French Championship. Bordeaux is the only team that dominates the competition against OM by being ” effective and spectacular »remembers Pierre Lescure. “I was waiting for Paris to animate the Championship, without dominating it, so that the competition was open”.
However, he strives to justify this choice so that the subscribers of the encrypted channel do not have the impression of financing the club. “I forced myself to go to outdoor matches and to all the local radio and television stations to explain why we had made this investment”he explains.
Pierre Lescure designates Michel Denisot to lead PSG. A mission that the latter takes up brilliantly by obtaining good results. “There were some very great matches where the quality of the game was Michel Denisot’s greatest success”he recalls.
As President of OM, Bernard Tapie also works miracles. A situation that creates a real rivalry between the two clubsto the great regret of the former president of Canal Plus. The meetings between the two teams which were to be exciting, while being tense, generate excessive attitudes on the part of supporters “very far from sport, a stone’s throw from hatred”laments Pierre Lescure.
He remembers in particular a great scare during a match, where he almost received two bolts in the headwhile he was in the presidential gallery.